‘On the Chronometer. 409 
xas and «A shall be louder than the 7: and v—in short, that a 
perfect crescendv and diminuendo shall be fully recognised in 
SS 
both; as thus aveyastios xo BicAvoev. The Grecian language ex- 
hibits innumerable words of this noble character—and why should 
not our Colleges follow the example by opening a certain num- 
ber of the antepenultimate syllables of our own? 
To conclude this letter. The latitude of forte and piano, in 
the delivery of our impassioned language even as at present con- 
stituted, is much greater than ordinary observers would imagine ; 
and to this subject the orator should direct his most serious con- 
sideration. The suitable and expressive distribution of forte, 
whether throughout individual or several words; nay, the diver- 
sified beauties of the crescendo and diminuendo are, in cases in- 
numerable, in every man’s pover* ; while cultivated taste go- 
verned by common sense cannot fail to apply them. Ru/es are 
of no utility, nor is there any ratioual standard by which so 
changeable a character as that of forte can be rendered immu- 
table. (To be continued. } 
* Especially when enabled by the writer. I have heard the following 
line delivered with ease and uncommon military effect : 
ere ERE 
Cohorts charge home—the infantry is broke. 
Here, in place of the vulgar alternacy of weak and strong syllables, are 
three consecutive syllables, ° without an intervening pause, all in complete 
crescendo. When poets (if I may be allowed a well-known hackney’d phrase) 
shall sink the country fiddler, and readers shall deliver our language as they 
ought—then may we aspire to classical composition. The for egomg is an 
example of the first epitrite—and so military a foot is not, in my opinion, 
to be met with in any modern language. For amusement, I have tried some 
military gentlemen with the delivery of these words, but their ordinary ha- 
bits did by no means lead them to such martial execution. See Magazine 
of October for the method of expressing the word ‘ cohorts.” 
LXIII. Remarks on a Paper ly Major-General BrisBaNnek, on 
the Method of determining the Time, the Error, and Rate of 
a Chronometer, by Altitudes taken with a Sextant from an 
artificial Horizon. By Mr. Ep. Rippwx. 
To Mr. Tilloch. 
Sirn,— if HAVE just seen, in the last volume of the Edinburgh 
Philosophical Transactions, a paper by Major- general Brisbane 
on the method of determining the time, the error, and rate of a 
chronometer, by altitudes taken with a sextant from an artificial 
horizon. I am agreeably surprised to find that his methods of 
observing and of making his computations scarcely differ in any 
respect, from those which I have practised for several years ; and 
judging 
